Every year at Christmas, many homeowners perform the ritual decorating of the house with ornaments and lights. This task, while ultimately satisfying, can be a tedious and time-consuming chore. Stringing lights, especially around the outside of the house, can be quite difficult. The homeowner must attach the string of lights at numerous points while attempting to align each one to face in a particular direction. When outside, the light string is sometimes attached along the facer board covering the ends of the roof rafters. This procedure is accomplished from precarious heights either on a ladder or leaning over the roof.
While not as physically demanding as exterior applications, mounting strings of lights around the interior of buildings can also be tedious. Many restaurants and other businesses use strings of lights indoor for non-seasonal decorating, for advertisement purposes or as a promotional gimmick. Alignment of each light in a string of such lights is highly desirable as the customers are likely to notice such attention to detail, which might transfer a positive attribute to the associated service or product, or, conversely, reflect badly on the business if left uneven. The installer finds it quite tedious to align large numbers of individual lights using conventional mounting means. Furthermore, brackets suitable for mounting strings of larger lights on the exterior of a building may be unsuitable for mounting a string of mini-lights in the interior.
Conventional means for attaching the light strings are inconvenient, and suffer many drawbacks. Foremost among problems with common attachment means is the inability to properly orient the individual light bulbs. Most standard clips or brackets simply suspend the light string, allowing individual lights to dangle at random angles, for a less than ideal presentation. This also allows the wire between brackets to dangle, leaving an untidy look.
One conventional attachment device, manufactured by Noma Lites, is a steel clip which is unsightly and highly electrically conductive. PEM Corporation manufactures white nylon brackets for stringing wire, each bracket including a C-shaped wire channel and a side tab through which a nail is run into the facer board. The semipermanence of nails works against easy removal and reinstallation of the brackets and light string. Moreover, the nylon becomes brittle and may break over time, especially if struck with a hammer.
Gray Products Group manufactures two attachment devices which are suitable for miniature light strings only. One provides a plastic receptacle which must be mounted face up on a horizontal surface or the lights will fall out. The receptacle has no positive clamping ability and is mounted with a double sticky adhesive strip, which precludes reinstallation. The second product is a three-inch (7.62 cm) plastic piece designed to wedge between two roof shingles. This mounting arrangement is less than positive and depends on the tension and alignment of the adjacent roof shingles. Moreover, this device will not work with stone roofs, tile roofs, and possibly asphalt shingle roofs. The plastic piece is also very unsightly.
Consequently, there is a need for a device for attaching a string of lights to a structure which is both durable and easy to install. There is also a need for such a device which can uniformly align the individual lights in the string.